Pontiff or HIGH PRIEST, a person who has the superintendence and direction of divine worship, as the offering of sacrifices and other religious solemnities. The Roman had a college of pontiffs, and over these a sovereign pontiff, instituted by Numa, whose function it was to prescribe the ceremonies each god was to be worshipped withal, compose the rituals, direct the vestals, and for a good while to perform the business of augury, till, on some superstitious occasion, he was prohibited intermeddling therewith. The Jews, too, had their pontiff; and among the Romanists the pope is styled the sovereign pontiff.